It’s the start of Black History Month, plus Imbolc!

 Today marks the  beginning of Black History Month plus, it’s the Celtic feast of Imbolc.

Imbolc marks the quickening

The word Imbolc derives from the Irish, ‘i mbolg’, meaning ‘in the belly’, or "first milk" in the old Irish Neolithiclanguage. It heralds the birthing season, as the soon-to-be-born lambs are growing in their mother’s bellies. Another powerful metaphor to describe this time is ‘winter pregnant with summer’. The seeds of summer are still hidden deep in the earth, in the womb of the goddess and while the worst of the winter darkness is over, Spring has not fully arrived yet.

But Black History Month has arrived. 

Each weekday in February, The Current is paying tribute a different influential artist in honor of Black History Month. You’ll hear hits, deeper cuts, covers, and collaborations – all to tell the stories of Ray Charles, Janet Jackson, Kendrick Lamar, Sharon Jones, and many more. 

One of my personal favorites from Black History is the Black Panthers Free Breakfast Program:

In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense to address police oppression of blacks in Oakland, California.  Because community members also turned to the Panthers for help with economic and social problems like job discrimination and evictions, the Panthers started community services in 1969 to build community self-determination.  The Panthers’ first and most successful community program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program.

The Panthers started the Free Breakfast Program because hunger and poverty made it difficult for many poor black children to learn in school.  In 1968, most poor children went to school hungry and stayed hungry.  The national School Lunch Program provided reduced-price, but not free lunches for poor children, and the national School Breakfast Program was limited to a few rural schools.  To address this need, the Panthers initiated the Free Breakfast Program at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland in January 1969.  Bobby Seale planned the program with Father Earl Neil and Parishioner Ruth Beckford-Smith, who coordinated the program and recruited neighborhood mothers.  The Breakfast Program quickly spread to chapters in 23 cities by the end of the year.  Local businesses, churches and community-based organizations donated (sometimes with community pressure) space for the program and nutritious food like eggs, grits, toast, and milk.  The Panthers fed more than 20,000 children nationally in 1969.  By 1971, at least 36 cities had a breakfast program.  In a 1969 U.S. Senate hearing, the national School Lunch Program administrator admitted that the Panthers fed more poor school children than did the State of California. 

may this spring bring US the dawn of a better era

Photo by J. Harrington

Since there are many bigots opposing the teaching of “critical race theory” [CRT] while book banning is regaining popularity among the functionally illiterate (which is a distressingly large percentage of the population), perhaps it’s time (and then some) for the United States to seriously consider Spring As a New Beginning. For openers,

CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. Sociologists and other scholars have long noted that racism can exist without racists. However, many Americans are not able to separate their individual identity as an American from the social institutions that govern us—these people perceive themselves as the system. Consequently, they interpret calling social institutions racist as calling them racist personally. It speaks to how normative racial ideology is to American identity that some people just cannot separate the two. There are also people who may recognize America’s racist past but have bought into the false narrative that the U.S. is now an equitable democracy. They are simply unwilling to remove the blind spot obscuring the fact that America is still not great for everyone.

This year is an election year. Many of the potential voters in our country appear to have gone over to the Dark Side of the Force. That means the rest of US must become Padawans to Jedi Knights if we wish to save democracy. Just remember, not all Jedis are Democrats and not all Democrats avoid the Dark Side. If enough of US vote progressives into office, this year a Blue Wave in November can create a true awakening for Spring 2023. The seeds are there. We must tend them.

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise. 

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